ESOC water maps balance

What could we do to fix water maps ?

Reduce the limit of fishing boats
13
29%
Add Teleport points to cross water
7
16%
Forbid some kind of military boats
5
11%
Other
20
44%
 
Total votes: 45

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France Rikikipu
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ESOC water maps balance

Post by Rikikipu »

As you have been able to see, there aren't that much water maps on ESOC. The main issue is that water has always been a controversial topic about the fact that it was broken or not.
You have also been able to see that Durokan is currently working on some water maps these last days : viewtopic.php?f=33&t=4748&start=300#p219422
These maps looks wonderful but it's hard to make it competitive giving the current state of water, which is sad because it really gives some new possibilites.
Since the ep team doesn't want to modify water right now, what do you think about directly modifying the water possibilites in the maps. We aren't going to modify the previous water maps, but we can try to add these features in the future ones (like the durokan ones). I've added in the poll some ideas that I had, but feel free to propose your own ones
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Greece BrookG
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Re: ESOC water maps balance

Post by BrookG »

Maybe have less fish in general? No spawn point can be a solution to less fighting for water, but this makes it harder to contest when one booms. It would be nice if there was an equal possibility of land and water play in those maps unless it is a purely water map, such as the recent work of Durokan.
Correlation doesn't mean causation.
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Re: ESOC water maps balance

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Post by SoldieR »

Water maps require a different playstyle. Adapt to that. What's the issue?

Yes, if you ignore water completely (half the map) you should lose. If you lose half the map, and then don't control all of the land part if the map, you should lose as well.
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Greece BrookG
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Re: ESOC water maps balance

Post by BrookG »

The issue is when someone hides their units for example and water booms, they can bounce back much easier I guess.
Correlation doesn't mean causation.
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Re: ESOC water maps balance

Post by SoldieR »

Then it's on the other player to pick the right time, and way, to switch over to water
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Re: ESOC water maps balance

Post by WickedCossack »

I mean you can just look at games on Hudson/Manchuria/Florida and notice that 95% of the time no one even touches the water. The only map in rotation right now which requires at least some understanding of water play is Indonesia and even then we see in the grand finals of the last tournament no one used it. It just requires a different play-style which a number of players don't seem to like (popular with the viewers though) and they have been quite vocal about that (see last tournament) so yea water play won't feature much unfortunately this event. If anything water play needs some kind of buff to make it more viable.
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Re: ESOC water maps balance

Post by pecelot »

BrookG wrote:Maybe have less fish in general? No spawn point can be a solution to less fighting for water, but this makes it harder to contest when one booms. It would be nice if there was an equal possibility of land and water play in those maps unless it is a purely water map, such as the recent work of Durokan.

Are you kidding me? Even less fish? You already have only 4 whales on maps like Hudson Bay, it makes any water-based play unviable after a certain point in time.
For me water is not an issue at all really, people just whine since they for some unknown reason absolutely detest it. Indonesia, for instance, has plenty of natural resources, it's offers a perfect counter for water, but no, players are still upset >.<
Also, I think the poll lacks the option „Nothing" then :!:
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Re: ESOC water maps balance

Post by lordraphael »

pecelot wrote:
BrookG wrote:Maybe have less fish in general? No spawn point can be a solution to less fighting for water, but this makes it harder to contest when one booms. It would be nice if there was an equal possibility of land and water play in those maps unless it is a purely water map, such as the recent work of Durokan.

Are you kidding me? Even less fish? You already have only 4 whales on maps like Hudson Bay, it makes any water-based play unviable after a certain point in time.
For me water is not an issue at all really, people just whine since they for some unknown reason absolutely detest it. Indonesia, for instance, has plenty of natural resources, it's offers a perfect counter for water, but no, players are still upset >.<
Also, I think the poll lacks the option „Nothing" then :!:

Indonesia may have enough land res. But the fact that its surrounded by water makes water play pretty much unbeatable. To fix water. youd def remove the offshore support card. Its broken as fuck. Also a id make the mortar special shot work only on buildings. Getting your art sniped by this while no counterplay is possible is just frustrating and lame.
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Re: ESOC water maps balance

Post by NekoBerk »

BrookG wrote:Maybe have less fish in general? No spawn point can be a solution to less fighting for water, but this makes it harder to contest when one booms. It would be nice if there was an equal possibility of land and water play in those maps unless it is a purely water map, such as the recent work of Durokan.


I was testing ESOC Malaysia with brits and playing against a PR 27, we realised that fish runs out kinda fast and there're only 2 whales in each sea of the map, so we think that for the same amount of wood that you can spend in try to water boom there, it's better if you just make mills when your hunts run out and we won't have that problem that the fishes run out too and the boats doesn't work anymore. So i think that less fish in general can make the water boom even worse than make mills.
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Re: ESOC water maps balance

Post by site »

I like the idea of water teleports! I agree that water is a type of play and you just have to adapt vs it instead of whining about it. Teleports though would make it very dynamic which would be quite fun!
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Re: ESOC water maps balance

Post by BrookG »

@pecelot Less fish, I didn't speak about whales. Adirondacks has a moderate amount of fish, the problem for not having often water boom in that map is the area of water and the lack of water spawn points. See there are 2 kinds of water maps: 1) those that promote/force heavily water play (RE included), such as Indonesia or Amazonia and 2) those where water isn't always the most probable strategy, like Manchuria or Baja California (btw the mini map on the ESOC Maps section is wrong for this map). Water definitely is neither standard nor easy to deal with, that's what annoys people. And for sure it has been proven a strong strategy.
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Re: ESOC water maps balance

Post by NekoBerk »

Water isn't broken for me, it's more balanced now that the walls have less HP because on RE it was pretty OP and lammer!
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Re: ESOC water maps balance

Post by pecelot »

lordraphael wrote:
pecelot wrote:
BrookG wrote:Maybe have less fish in general? No spawn point can be a solution to less fighting for water, but this makes it harder to contest when one booms. It would be nice if there was an equal possibility of land and water play in those maps unless it is a purely water map, such as the recent work of Durokan.

Are you kidding me? Even less fish? You already have only 4 whales on maps like Hudson Bay, it makes any water-based play unviable after a certain point in time.
For me water is not an issue at all really, people just whine since they for some unknown reason absolutely detest it. Indonesia, for instance, has plenty of natural resources, it's offers a perfect counter for water, but no, players are still upset >.<
Also, I think the poll lacks the option „Nothing" then :!:

Indonesia may have enough land res. But the fact that its surrounded by water makes water play pretty much unbeatable. To fix water. youd def remove the offshore support card. Its broken as fuck. Also a id make the mortar special shot work only on buildings. Getting your art sniped by this while no counterplay is possible is just frustrating and lame.

I'd say kinda otherwise, it has 4 choke points along with two smaller peninsulas in which you can defend yourself with your own fleet and outposts. Of course to contest water past like age 3 you have to go on water yourself, but people seem to blame it for being broken when they don't even have appropriate decks prepared... :mad:
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Re: ESOC water maps balance

Post by Akechi_Mitsuhide »

Adding teleport points sounds ridiculous tbh
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Re: ESOC water maps balance

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Post by Garja »

Pretty much nothing. ESOC maps already have nerfed water res which is basically enough to make it less efficient and beatable.
Water play is a big factor in this game - pretty much like trading posts - so it just needs to be considered by players.
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Re: ESOC water maps balance

Post by pecelot »

Not to mention EP nerfs to monitors and Aztec TEAM Schooners card!!! :idea:
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Re: ESOC water maps balance

Post by Garja »

Ye monitor nerf is really big. It basically makes water itself always beatable. Only way to lose to water now is when water guy also gets a land army which I guess is legit.
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Re: ESOC water maps balance

Post by NekoBerk »

I don't want to disrespect or be controversial, but i think that all the people that is bothered because of TPs and Water boom are persons below PR 27 that doesn't know how to counter them properly
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Re: ESOC water maps balance

Post by Rikikipu »

So all people agree here (except lordraphael with who I agree) that if we make maps with predominant water playstyle like indonesia or hispaniola it will be ok and competitive ?
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Re: ESOC water maps balance

Post by momuuu »

I think a good real water map still makes land vs water place possible. So thatd mean that theres a decent bit of land uncontested by warships and that there are other boom options like tp boom.
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Re: ESOC water maps balance

Post by wardyb1 »

My issue with water in this game and possibly the balance around it, is that it feels clunky. Just the ship micro of setting up to shoot and then not firing is the virtual opposite of land units. It's the same with mortars shooting at boats. You can avoid the shot by simply moving your boat, something that once again can't happen on land. These small differences become frustrating to play with/against, and as a result skews what water feels like to play with/against as a result affects the seeming balance of water play.

As stated above it simply requires a different play style, one that many people simply don't want to learn/struggle to learn because it seems so ambiguous and foreign to playing land. As a result, water is probably reasonably balanced. So how do you fix water maps? My argument would be fix the mechanics of it but that can't happen so not much probably should be done about it.
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Re: ESOC water maps balance

Post by deleted_user0 »

fishing boats even with schooners have never been an issue, the only real issue is with upgraded warships not having a legit counter, specially when monitors come into play. its been migitated a bit on ep with less monitor range, and where town centers are positioned relative to the shore. i think atm warships might not need a nerf, just need to tweak artillery a bit vs warships.
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Re: ESOC water maps balance

Post by EAGLEMUT »

wardyb1 wrote:Just the ship micro of setting up to shoot and then not firing is the virtual opposite of land units. It's the same with mortars shooting at boats. You can avoid the shot by simply moving your boat, something that once again can't happen on land.

Not entirely true, avoiding cannon shots is perfectly possible on land as well, though I'd agree it's harder than on water simply due to the speed difference of water units vs land units; ships are pretty fast.
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Re: ESOC water maps balance

Post by abbadan »

I've got no problem with water maps, except when they lag. if both sides have the same rules, it's a fair game.
That said, I think there should be an early land-based counter that to ships, some kind of artillery that beats even the longest range monitor eventually, and some effective land-based option to counter the fish-boom.
It might be a thought to tweak the mechanism so that fishing only works on a ship-per-dock basis; you can only have 20 ships working per dock (or whatever # the better players figure is right). This way, you could counter a sea-boom by focusing down the docks, or at least force the boomer to commit heavy resources to protecting them.
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Re: ESOC water maps balance

Post by abbadan »

Rikikipu wrote:So all people agree here (except lordraphael with who I agree) that if we make maps with predominant water playstyle like indonesia or hispaniola it will be ok and competitive ?

I think at a high-level you have to be able to play with whatever you're dealt and win, as long as it's an even deck. There are tennis players who are better on grass and others better on clay. Some have a dominating serve, others have extraordinary hustle and cover ground. To quote Michael J.: "Just beat it!"

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